2008.05.25

Well, it's almost over now, but our two-week trip up north for the summer has given me enough room to breathe. Go ahead and question the sanity of taking two pre-school kids on a 3600+ mile roadtrip, but we always make it work and have lots of fun (without a single DVD in the car!). For more details about how we make it fun for the kids, check out our other blog, Thoughts on Parenting.

This year, we decided to include my parents in the trip. They've never been up to Elisa's family place in Wisconsin, and were excited to join us. We met them in Vicksburg (halfway for both of us), and drove to Chicago. My dad got to see his old high school and his house, and my mom got to see the city for the first time. Our hotel was on the "Gold Coast," and was quite a steal from HotWire.

Here are some pics of the first leg of our journey. You can see more on my Web Gallery. This was our snazzy room in our über-snobby "boutique" hotel in Chicago.

We did the "driving tour" of the major sites, since we only had one morning and my mom hadn't seen the city. Here's the Sears Tower.

Here's Wrigley Field.

Here's the new Trump Tower (remember season 1 of The Apprentice?).

Our moment of serendipity -- I was taking the kids for a walk after they finished eating in a not-so-kid-friendly restaraunt near our hotel, and we happened upon this amazing little park. Elisa and my parents soon joined us. We returned the next morning to play before heading out of town.

2008.05.11

He likes his sister's pink sparkly shoes and as long as we're confessing, he sometimes wears dresses around the house.

Today I tried a little experiment in reverse psychology. I said to him, "wow, those are nice sparkly shoes, little girl." He replied, "I'm not a little girl!" to which I said, "but you're wearing girls' sparkle shoes."

The next thing I know, he runs up to me and turns around, pointing to the back of his head. "See!" he says emphatically. "See what?" I said. He quickly replied, "NO PONY TAIL!"

It was pretty cute and worth a chuckle. But I persisted in my line of reasoning and repeated, "but those shoes are still pretty, little girl."

The next thing I knew, he dropped his pants and said, "I'M NOT A GIRL! SEE! I HAVE A PENIS!"

It took me a good five minutes to catch my breath!

=-=-=-=-=

Incidentally, for more stuff from Elisa's and my reservoir of parenting stories, shortcuts, helps, tricks, and other miscellaneous stuff, see our new blog, Thoughts On Parenting.